Thursday, May 26, 2016

There has been an unexpected
delay in the publication of my new book Porcupines
toPolar Bears.

The manuscript was ready to go in late
January. The intended launch date was at the beginning of April. A couple of
things beyond my control have put that back and the printer still has not got
the book to Dragon Hill, my publisher.While I wait I will post a small number of edited clips to give an idea
of the work and hopefully tickle your fancy. Here is one.

A
sure sign of spring in the 1970s and 80s was the arrival of orphan bear cubs at
the Forestry Farm Zoo in Saskatoon. Most often the mothers had been shot when
they became a danger to humans in logging camps in the north. The cubs usually
arrived in early March.

One
mother bear cannot have known what was coming when she heard the growling noise
of diesel engine approaching. The machine was a huge earth mover clearing an
area around her den to prepare it for a mining camp.

Next
thing she had been crushed to death by tonnes of a mix of earth, rock and
trees.

The
driver of the enormous machine must have been right on the ball when he saw the dead bear because he was
quickly out of his cab to see what he had wrought. There were two tiny cubs
nestled against the sow’s chest. Both were alive and would almost certainly
have been mewling. He must have been horrified.

It
was late January and bitterly cold, with daytime highs hovering around the
minus twenty centigrade mark, while at night it dipped below minus thirty. For
an adult bear, spending much of her time in the den she could develop a real
cozy fug—that warm, smoky, stuffy atmosphere so favoured by the British— this
temperature would be no sort of challenge, and she could easily keep a cub warm
and snuggled up as it lay between her front legs or on her chest where it could
easily get some nourishing milk from one of her two teats, which like a human’s
are level with the armpits.

The
cubs eyes were still closed and their umbilical cords hardly dry. They would
have no chance of living for a full day.

The
driver acted right away, no doubt on the radio installed in his cab (no cell
phones in 1980). With admirable speed someone on the crew bundled the cubs up
in a warm blanket and headed to Saskatoon, some 400 km away.

It
was obvious that there was a real challenge at hand. The smallest cub was
moribund, hardly responding and making no noise. It died within a couple of
hours. The eyes of the larger cub, a male, were closed and a 10 cm length of
dried umbilical cord was attached to it belly. On the zoo scale it weighed under
a kilogram.

Given
that reading it had likely doubled its birth weight and was no more than two
weeks old, a very early arrival indeed.

Bottle
raising bear cubs was nothing new the zoo staff. Those previous ones were much further
along on their development and weighed two or three kilograms by the time they
reached us. They did well on evaporated milk and soon dived into some added solids
fed twice a day.

The
tiny new orphan would need to be ‘on the bottle’ every three hours day and
night. Obviously impossible given the small number of staff. Another solution
was needed.

Romulus and Remus and their foster mum

Could
a foster-mother be found? Other human / animal wet nurse stories come to mind. The
classic, which may be more myth that fact is the story of the founding of Rome
by the brothers Romulus and Remus, nursed by a she-wolf. There are plenty of
records of humans nursing animals. For instance, as reported by Samuel Radbill in 1976, travelers
in Guyana observed native women breastfeeding a variety of animals, including
monkeys, opossums, pacas, agoutis, peccaries and deer.

It became
a case of trying to find a suitable lactating female. In those pre-laptop,
pre-Google days of 1980, but having some knowledge of this practice, I called Dr.
Ernie Olfert at the animal resource centre at the university and see if we can
get some help. We were in luck. A Terrier-cross bitch had just whelped. We
could borrow her for the unusual task of raising our little orphan.

I
was unsure if the bitch would accept the newcomer to her cute litter of four
mainly white pups, with the only black on them being around their heads and
ears.

Although
I have later learned that dogs will often accept such newcomers without the aid
of drugs it seemed prudent to sedate her and try to fool her into thinking that
nothing unusual had happened when she woke. The injection soon had her dozing
soundly. Next, the faeces on the Q-tip that I had briefly put into her rear end
was smeared over the little cub. He took no notice.

The
objective was to try and fool the bitch into thinking that he was one of hers
that needed a clean-up. When the hungry cub was placed at her belly he at once
latched onto a teat and began to suck as if there was no tomorrow.

The milk bar is open

Even
before she was fully awake the bitch began to check on her litter. She licked both
cub and pups. He was just one of the gang. He soon perked up and within a week
was mixing with the pups, rolling, play-growling and so on, although in a
slightly different language than his “litter-mates”. He was having a good time.

All
went well for about four weeks, but on my daily check-ups it became obvious that
her udder looked sore. On closer examination I thought that the needle-sharp
claws of her foster child might be causing the problem. She seemed to be
uncomfortable as soon as he began to feed and we needed to do something before she
rejected him outright.

It
is unlikely that a five-week-old bear cub has ever had his toenails clipped,
but that is what we did. While keeper Sharon held the squirming little guy I
used a set of human clippers to do the job. He struggled a bit and made his
objection known with little squalls. Other than that the process went smoothly,
unlike some dog clipping wrestling matches I engaged in during my general
practice days in Kenya. We then wrapped the ends of his feet in sticky tape to
try and further protect the udder and put him back with his buddies.

This
worked for only two more days and then she simply turned off the taps. One day
the pups and the cub were nursing—the next she would have nothing to do with
them. It seems probable that the cub’s tiny needle-sharp teeth may have finally
led to this dismissal. The pretty little bitch’s job was done. She went home
with all but one of her charges to Dr. Olfert’s care at the university.

We
had weighed the cub every three days and he had made great progress, now
stretching the spring to over two kilograms. He would need more milk for a
while and so we went back to the standard evaporated milk for bear cubs, only three
times and then twice a day.

He
did lose weight for the first two days, but then the scale began to stretch
every day. Within a month he was up to five kilos.

Play time

We
hung on to him for about another month as he and one cub had formed a bond and
seemed to spend their days roughhousing, eating or sleeping curled up together.

Within
a coupe of weeks the pair were losing interest in the milk as they found a much
more enticing diet in the bowl full of milk, fruit and ground meat on offer.

The
two buddies stayed indoors for another six weeks, the cub leaving the pup in
the dust both literally when they played and weight–wise. On April 15, two and
half months after he arrived, he weighed fifteen kilos, the same as his foster
mother when she adopted him.

Friday, May 6, 2016

From Coronel Suarez we headed for
Buenos Aries, the capital city of Argentina. Here I must declare a bias. With
the exception of Christchurch in New Zealand I have not yet been to a city that
I like. Too many people, too much traffic, etc., etc. Buenos Aries is part of
the group. There were a few saving graces.

Buenos Aries skyline

The evening view from our hotel
window was spectacular.

Some of the buildings were impressive. There were
beautiful trees in some parks. We were lucky to meet up with Laura and her son
Ethan. We had first met them on our trip over the Andes from Chile and Laura
urged us to get in touch once we hit the city.

Blooming trees in BA

Jo's Tilley hat and one of BA's buildings

They took us to a nice restaurant on the waterfront and we were
impressed with the tall buildings across the river that had been built on a
reclaimed garbage dump.

A BA yellow bus

We were much less impressed with the Yellow bus hop-on, hop-offcity tour.If all the buses are the same as the one we boarded they are an
utter waste of time and money.

The Nauga
hide seats had cracks in them. The headphones are unreliable. We had to choose
among three of them before we found a pair that even worked.Every now and again, without any action our
part, the commentary would quit, or change into another language. As if that
was not enough the recorded voice would seldom tell us about the place or
building we were passing.Useless as
tits on a boar. We soon disembarked and headed for the metro, which is
excellent.

General San Martin

We did more exploring on foot. A
tasty treat at a panaderia for lunch;
the famous monument of General San Martin, the national hero of Argentina.We were impressed with the cathedral and it
high altar.

Unfortunately we fell victim to a pickpocket.We had heard of the skill of the local
members of this brigade. I imagine that the activity is on an industrial scale
with gangs acting as teams. Our pickpocketing experience may have been unique. As
we emerged from the dark of the cathedral to the bright sunlight of the square
Jo put on her dark glasses. We crossed the road, walked fifteen metres and
suddenly Jo called out, “my hat!It was
gone.

Jo and her new hat

Her expensive Tilley headgear had been removed from her head. Only one solution.
Buy a straw replacement from a sidewalk vendor.

On our last evening we did
enjoy a tango show. The intriguing thing was the demonstration of the dancing
styles and costumes over the last century.

A special place

Enough of cities for quite some
time. One reads of places and things that should be
on anyone’s bucket list.

The Taj Mahal, Machu Pichu, Victoria Falls, an
elephant herd in the wild. We are lucky to have seen all four. There are no
doubt others.

A special moment on the shore oif the Kasinga Channel, Queen Elizabeth NP, Uganda

Machu Pichu, another special place

In each case one can read as much
as one likes, one can even see photos or watch videos. Then one sees the real
thing. The experience is on another level.

The Devil's cauldron Iguazu

Next stop the Iguazu Falls. Even in the thirty-four degree
and maybe ninety-five percent humidity the falls are stunning.

A raging series
of cataracts, crashing sound, clouds of spray high in the air. Enough said.

The best thing, other than the falls? As we left the little train at the exit gate there were two cold showers to stand under. We soaked oursleves from head to foot, clothes and all.

The clothes were dry by the time we boarded the bus, but the temporary relief was great.

Despite my statement that photos not doing justice here are a couple that we
have kept, if only for ourselves (and to share in miniature here)

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Jerry Haigh

About Me

My career as a wildlife veterinarian and storyteller has taken me to many countries for work on a wide range of species. I enjoy relating stories about the wild animal work, which range from having soldier ants up my shorts and pregnancy checking a lion to giving an enema to a rhino and encounters with a shaman from the Tsaatan reindeer herders in the mountains of Mongolia. I enjoy weaving African and other folktales into accounts of my own experiences with animals.
In Africa I have worked in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Cameroon. In North America I have worked on species as diverse as polar bears, wood bison, seals, wolves, moose and elk. For thirty years I have worked on a wide variety of deer species on four continents.
If you entered this blog directly you might like to take a look at pictures and extracts of my three books "Wrestling With Rhinos", "The Trouble With Lions" and "Of Moose and Men" that you can find on my web site at www.jerryhaigh.com